TAMDRUP KIRKE - Nationalmuseet

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5170 of this dramatic event was later told repeatedly in varied forms by chroniclers in Denmark and abroad. Closest to the scene shown on the Tamdrup panels, where the ordeal can be seen to take the form of wearing a redhot glove (figs. 68, 89), are the versions in Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum and a later addition to Adam of Bremen’s history (c. 1075) – both accounts, like the panels, from c. 1200. By contrast, no preserved sources are known for the continuation of the story on the Tamdrup panels, where we apparently see the Danish King showing the church his humble allegiance and donating the rich gifts (figs. 9294). That Poppo’s ordeal, according to the Tamdrup panels, won him both a bishopric and sainthood is evident from his bishop’s robes and halo. However, the role of the King is also so prominent that it looks like an attempt to give Harald Bluetooth or his son Sweyn Forkbeard (†1013) the status of a kind of Danish Constantine in the mythology of the Danish monarchy. The reason Sweyn Forkbeard has also been proposed as the King on the Tamdrup panels is that the Poppo story, in the Danish historiography of the High Middle Ages – for example in Saxo , was often transferred from King Harald to him. The representation of the story of the otherwise unknown ‘St. Poppo’ in Tamdrup seems to suggest as a background a special local cult with pilgrimages, which might help to explain the large, rich building, and in fact implies that, locally at least, Tamdrup was singled out as the locus of the triumph of Christianity in Denmark. And the ‘national’ character and implications of such a cult must be a crucial argument in favour of a Royal foundation and continued patronage. We may compare this to William the Conqueror’s Battle Abbey, founded on the battlefield at Hastings, where he had won the crown of England in 1066, or to Valdemar the Great’s foundation of Vitskøl Abbey out of gratitude for the victory on Grathe Heath in 1157, when he won the monarchy of Denmark for himself and his line. The erection of the present church building in Tamdrup may very well have been the work of King Niels (110334). And the idea of Royal patronage is presumably supported by the founder’s ENGLISH SUMMARY pictures on the golden altar from c. 1200, since here, in the most prestigious place on the right of the Christ in Majesty, we see a crowned woman – probably a queen, or perhaps a duchess (fig. 101a). She could be Valdemar the Great’s widow, Sophia of Novgorod (†1198). But perhaps we should seek a more likely foundress in the branches of the Royal family that were dethroned after 1157 – and possibly among the descendants of King Niels. The association with a losing branch in the struggles for the throne in the 1100s would at least offer one explanation of why no monastery was ever attached to the church. And it would make it easier to understand why in the Late Middle Ages the place appears to have become a shrine of primarily local significance, although probably with some pilgrimage. Reasonably consistent as these arguments seem, it must be emphasized that they are based more or less exclusively on the presumed implications of the building itself and it ornamentation. The written evidence of Poppo’s ordeal locates it variously in Schleswig, in Ribe, on the island of Mors (North Jutland) and at the Isøre Thing (Zealand), while Tamdrup is not mentioned at all. The sources are equally silent about any pilgrimage to Tamdrup, in the Late as in the Early Middle Ages. The place thus still presents a fascinating mystery. THE CHURCH BUILDING. The church, which has preoccupied art historians since 1870, is a large, very well preserved calcareous tufa building, with a dendrochronological dating to c. 1125. It takes the form of a basilica with a chancel and a threeaisled nave, originally with apses at the eastern end (fig. 18). To this Romanesque complex a porch was added in the north and a large tower in the west in the Late Middle Ages; the nave was rebuilt and furnished with vaulting and the chancel was extended with a sacristy in the east (fig. 17). The church very likely had a predecessor of wood, since the archaeological excavations in 2001 were able to establish that there had been burials at the site before the building of the stone church.
The Romanesque basilica was probably built in one continuous process within a few years, with the chancel and the eastern end of the nave as the first stage. A dendrochronological analysis (1983) of two window frames – from the north side of the chancel and the south side of the nave – shows that the wood used was felled in the first decades of the 1100s. And since the wood in the two window frames seems to have been felled at the same time, we must assume that the chancel and nave were finished at about the same time. In the nave the foundations were originally designed to bear a wall of the same thickness as the chancel; but after the construction of the eastern quarter of the side aisle walls the thickness was reduced, so that the lowest part of the walls at the western end on the inside was left standing as a bench. The chancel is the only part of the church to have facade ornamentation, consisting of roundarched recesses divided by pilasters; but as a highly unusual feature this architectural decoration was not used at the eastern end of the chancel, which is without corner pilasters. The chancel apse, which was demolished a few years before the Reformation, is known from an excavation in 2001. The nave, whose gables were probably terminated with masonry crests, had doors in the south and north and presumably also in the west. The low sideaisles were sparingly illuminated with just two windows in each side and a single window in the western end. In the nave walls there was an odd number of windows, five in the south and four in the north. In the central nave, which was covered by a flat timbered ceiling, the walls were borne by twelve low pillars, six on each side, every second of which was removed in connection with the vaulting in the 1400s. What has been preserved is five round columns and one rectangular pier, the northwestern one. From the missing pillars a restoration in 193334 was only able to demonstrate the square plinths that had borne the piers, which means that it is possible that the interior had alternating round columns and square piers – socalled alternating supports (cf. figs. 18, 42). An unusual opening in the east gable of the nave, above the chancel arch and <strong>TAMDRUP</strong> CHURCH 5171 originally visible from the central nave, opened on to the chancel loft (figs. 19, 20). The roundarched opening, cut across at the top by the ceiling beam, is technically a relieving arch; but it may have been put there for the sake of the surrounding murals – perhaps to hold a sculpture (the Ascension?), or for special liturgical reasons (the display of relics?). At the opposite end there was probably a timbered west gallery, resting on ledges in the arcade walls. The chronology of the extensive Late Medieval construction phases can be estimated with reasonable certainty. The porch at the north side of the nave and probably also a later demolished southern porch are older than the rebuilding of the nave, and this may also be true of the chancel vaulting. After this the construction stages mainly went from west to east. The tower was built while the central aisle still stood with its old roof height, perhaps around 1463, when the large bell of the church was acquired. The tower interior was originally divided into two floors, and the thick south wall probably contained a staircase. After this work began – probably c. 14751500 – on the nave, whose outer walls were considerably heightened and reinforced with buttresses, and vaults were built in, beginning with the side aisles and ending with the central aisle. In the southwestern corner of this a spiral staircase was built in an independent stairwell (demolished in 1933). In connection with the vaulting, as mentioned above, every other pillar was removed in the nave walls and new large arcades were broken through to the sideaisles. The interior thus more or less took on the character of a hall church, inasmuch as the arches of the sideaisles only have a slightly lower span than those of the central aisle. Since the rebuilding the three aisles of the nave have been covered by a large common roof. Before 1520 (cf. the murals) the apse was separated from the chancel and accommodated a small narrow sacristy by a closing wall in front of the opening of the apse (fig. 48). The transverse wall was originally furnished with a door at the north side of the altar. Above the altar, which because of the door was pulled towards the south, the partition wall is furnished with 326*
Page 1 and 2:
Fig. 1. Kirken i landskabet set fra
Page 3 and 4:
C. G. Schultz, der 1937 ville dater
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TAMDRUP KIRKE Fig. 3. Kirken set fr
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af køreport og låge, lukket med j
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Page 13 and 14:
TAMDRUP KIRKE 5055 Fig. 9de. Opm
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Danmarks Kirker, Århus TAMDRUP KIR
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5059 Fig. 13ac. Opm
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Fig. 14ae. Rekonstruktion af den
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5063 Fig. 17. Grundpl
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de kom også det øverste lag af ka
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5067 Fig. 21de. Opm
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5069 Fig. 23ac. Opm
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5071 Fig. 26. Korets
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Page 33 and 34:
TAMDRUP KIRKE Fig. 30. Kirken set f
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Fig. 33. Romansk vindue i højkirke
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TAMDRUP KIRKE Fig. 35. Indre set mo
Page 39 and 40:
variationer i højde og udførelse,
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Fig. 40ac. Udvalgte romanromanske
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5085 Fig. 42. Rekonst
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TAMDRUP KIRKE Fig. 44. Kirken set f
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
ved sakristiets gavl, men var efter
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5093 Fig. 49. Opmåli
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nyede tagværk. Sporet af den indmu
Page 55 and 56:
Ifølge F. Uldall, der besøgte kir
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da fødselsscenen i Jelling har sam
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ne ses rester af spidse bølgetunge
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mindre i behold, men man kan dog se
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arkitektoniske indfatninger af scen
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at bygningen har stået længere ti
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en stor bladdusk, og foran dem i l
Page 69 and 70:
Oversigt. Samtidig med den tidlig
Page 71 and 72:
ikke kan have båret nogen traditio
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5115 Fig. 72. Majesta
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TAMDRUP KIRKE 5117 Fig. 74ab. Maj
Page 77 and 78: ede stjerner. Bag hende ses beklipp
Page 79 and 80: Danmarks Kirker, Århus TAMDRUP KIR
Page 81 and 82: ler med jødehatte trakterer ham fr
Page 83 and 84: TAMDRUP KIRKE 5125 Fig. 8891. Pop
Page 85 and 86: strimler. Det har rester af en rank
Page 87 and 88: ne og Guds tjenere skyldig ære«.
Page 89 and 90: TAMDRUP KIRKE 5131 Fig. 99ab. Hel
Page 91 and 92: At frontalet (A) har hørt til kirk
Page 93 and 94: ler anden form indgået i alterpryd
Page 95 and 96: Danmarks Kirker, Århus TAMDRUP KIR
Page 97 and 98: gen. Foden udgør en hul vinbeholde
Page 99 and 100: TAMDRUP KIRKE Fig. 110. Døbefont a
Page 101 and 102: TAMDRUP KIRKE Fig. 112. Prædikesto
Page 103 and 104: med udsvejfet top. Som nu dannede s
Page 105 and 106: Kirken, hvis gamle gravsten siden 1
Page 107 and 108: og et i svagt relief hugget process
Page 109 and 110: amme med blomster og bladornament
Page 111 and 112: 1) O. 1836, over gårdmand Otto Jen
Page 113 and 114: TAMDRUP KIRKE Fig. 127. Interiør s
Page 115 and 116: i en samtidig levnedsskildring af
Page 117 and 118: s. 348f. og 386f. Artiklerne er opt
Page 119 and 120: evaret lidt af en skråkantet sokke
Page 121 and 122: strup: Johannes i Jelling, Skalk, 1
Page 123 and 124: 1970 (note 37), s. 142ff., hvor ræ
Page 125 and 126: 278 Nørlund 1926 (note 28), s. 173
Page 127: Danmarks Kirker, Århus 5169 Fig. 1
Page 131 and 132: middle of this we see small traces
Page 133 and 134: elief. Brown varnish was not used o
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